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Welcome to the pages of the Earth Surface Hydrology group at Utrecht University. Our group was established in 2002. We are part of the Department of Physical Geography , one of the four departments of the Faculty of Geosciences.

Earth Surface Hydrology is concerned with the study of hydrological processes near and on the earth surface. It focuses on the flow of water, nutrients and energy between the earth surface and the subsoil and between the earth surface and the atmosphere. It aims to quantify how rainfall is portioned into infiltration, evaporation and runoff, and how nutrients in the soil and the earth surface are distributed through the landscape through surface runoff and groundwater flow.

Our research focuses on three major themes: 1) Large-scale hydrology, including the global hydrological model PCR-GLOBWB (link to global hydrology site); 2) Ecohydrology and eco-geomorphology; 3) Geocomputation. Check out our Research pages for more information.

In a new study by Ted Veldkamp (VU Amsterdam), Yoshi Wada et al. that appeared in Nature Communications it is shown, by using a multi-model ensemble from ISI-MIP 2a (PCR-GLOBWB among these), that human interventions in the global water system may decrease water scarcity upstream while aggravating water scarcity downstream.

We are happy to announce that Inge de Graaf published a paper about our newly-developed global two-layer transient groundwater model. This version is coupled one-way with the global hydrology and water resources model PCR-GLOBWB. A newer version also has a two-way (at time-step) coupling with PCR-GLOBWB and will be reported on shortly. You can find the paper here!

Furthermore, Yoshihide Wada (vice-director Water at IIASA and senior research associate at UU) and colleagues published a new paper in Nature Geoscience in which they show from analyses of satellite and local well data spanning the past decade that long-term changes in monsoon precipitation are driving groundwater storage variability in most parts of India either directly by changing recharge or indirectly by changing abstraction.

Worldwide economic losses from river flooding could increase 20-fold by the end of the 21st century if no further actions on flood risk reduction are taken. Over 70% of this increase can be attributed to economic growth in flood prone areas

This follows from a recent study by a Dutch consortium that includes our research group.